Dressing up Beck's "tree of radicalism," Parker claims ACORN, SEIU are "as tight as Heidi Klum and a new pair of jeans"

While everyone in Washington is suddenly pretending they've hardly ever heard of ACORN, they might want to pretend they've never heard of the SEIU, one of the nation's largest unions.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and the Service Employees International Union are as tight as Heidi Klum and a new pair of jeans.

You don't think about one without the other.

Beck: "It's almost like" Apollo Alliance, ACORN, SEIU "are all connected." During the September 21 edition of his Fox News show, Beck stated, "The Apollo Alliance, OK -- oh, look, it's ACORN. ACORN founder Wade Rathke is former chairman of Tides Center. That's weird. Rathke was on the Tides board! ACORN, Tides, Apollo, Van Jones, Jeff Jones, Weather Underground -- uh-oh. But, the good news is there's no funny business going on here. Soros gives money to Health Care for America Now, which is weird because the two organizations that are doing that are ACORN and SEIU. We already know about ACORN." He further claimed, "Wow! It's almost like these three" -- pointing to the Apollo Alliance, ACORN and SEIU on a chart -- "are all connected. It's almost like -- it's like this. Isn't that weird? Who would have thunk that? Maybe somebody should have asked the president that question." [Glenn Beck, 9/21/09]

Beck's "tree of radicalism and revolution" links ACORN, SEIU. During the September 18 version of his Fox News show, Beck purported to "show you the big picture of what's happening here. The roots of the tree of radicalism and revolution -- it's Saul Alinsky, it's Woodrow Wilson. That's how it's all made legitimate. It's progressive." He further stated, "So here are the roots -- here are the roots. Here's SDS. This is for that Democratic Society. Cloward and Piven come in and say, 'Wait a minute, hang on just a second. What we should do is collapse the system on its own weight.' So, Wade Rathke goes this way and he starts ACORN. Dale Rathke, again, we think, is with SEIU." [Glenn Beck, 9/18/09]

Now picture a triangle. One point is ACORN; another point is the SEIU; the third point is the taxpayer. Now picture arrows flowing back and forth, representing the exchange of greenbacks and services.

While various government agencies funded ACORN to help poor people become voters and homeowners, ACORN under Rathke created SEIU Local 100 (Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas) and SEIU Local 880 (Illinois, Indiana and Kansas). In turn, the SEIU wrote checks to ACORN for political activities and union organizing, according to ACORN whistle-blower affidavits. In 2008, the SEIU and Change to Win, a coalition of labor unions, gave ACORN $1,729,462, according to union financial reports filed with the Labor Department.

To break it down, ACORN and the SEIU are hand and glove. Rathke himself referred to the SEIU as "one of the pillars of the ACORN family of organizations" in a June 9, 2007, blog posting. This coziness has been long known among conservative watchdog groups, but Washington has paid little attention until now.

Parker's guilt-by-association attack links SEIU to Blagojevich

From Parker's column:

One needn't be a mathematician to imagine what a national health-care option might mean to a union in search of new dues-paying recruits. The SEIU, which has promised "to fight tooth and nail" for a public option, is demonstrably persuasive. In Illinois, former governor Blagojevich (thank you for your patience) helped position the SEIU so that it could unionize health-care workers when he signed an executive order allowing collective bargaining. The SEIU showed its appreciation in advance by becoming Blagojevich's largest contributor, handing over $1.8 million for his two gubernatorial campaigns.

Parker suggests the "health-care reform debate could become stalled" because of "dot-connecting"

From Parker's column:

As an ironic sidebar, America's health-care reform debate could become stalled -- not by Senate Republicans demanding a cost analysis (how mundane) but by dot-connecting prompted by the Halloweenish ACORN sting starring a faux pimp and prostitute.

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